


A Prayer in Spring

by OhAine



Series: The Frost Collection [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, AU after season 3, Aftermath of grief, Discussion of Violence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Post TAB, Sherlolly - Freeform, Strong Language, discussion of off page canonical death, discussion of off page non-canonical death, mollock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 19:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19874755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhAine/pseuds/OhAine
Summary: Moira (n) [moi-rah](1) Classical mythology, the personification of fate.(2) Scottish Gaelic, variation of the name Mary.(3) Irish Gaelic, something that is deeply wished for.





	A Prayer in Spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [satin_doll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/satin_doll/gifts).



> So late it's shameful, but happy birthday my dear friend. This is dedicated to you with so much love x
> 
> Inspired by Robert Frost's A Prayer in Spring, this is a continuation of the universe established in A Sunset Bird in Winter. 
> 
> Un beta'd. I own nothing but the typos. See author's note before reading.

**_A/N:_ ** _It’s taken me a long time to feel okay enough about John to write this, and it was mostly plotted long before Season 4 aired. This story won’t make sense to you if you haven’t read[part 1 of this series, A Sunset Bird in Winter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6362083), as it’s a continuation of that universe and is completely AU after Season 3. However, there are some similarities between this AU and canon: Mary did die, but it was before she gave birth, and John does blame Sherlock for her death. Mycroft was responsible for ending Sherlock’s exile by some means that isn’t discussed, but he’s been removed from London because of that and we’re not told where he is. The Smith case happened (including Mary’s messages and John’s assault on Sherlock) and the events of TLD are largely the same up to Sherlock's hospitalisation, except for Mycroft’s absence and John failing to come to Sherlock’s aid when Smith tried to kill him, meaning the two are still estranged. _

_As for Molly and Sherlock, well…_

* * *

_And give us not to think so far away as the uncertain harvest; keep us here all simply in the springing of the year._

—Robert Frost, A Prayer in Spring.

*

*

_But you have retired, Holmes. We heard of you as living the life of a hermit among your bees and your books in a small farm upon the South Downs._

—John Watson, His Last Bow.

*

*

Moira (n) [ **moi** -r _ah_ ]

(1) Classical mythology, the personification of fate.

(2) Scottish Gaelic, variation of the name Mary.

(3) Irish Gaelic, something that is deeply wished for.

*

*

Time passes:

Twelve months, give or take, since John was married with a kid on the way, back when he had a best friend, a future. None of that being true anymore. One whole year. An eternity, gone in the blink of an eye.

Ten months since he did what he did to Sherlock.

The same ten since Smith.

Nine and a half since Molly disappeared.

Six weeks in anger management.

Seventeen days since he last cried.

Two hours on a train to Sussex.

Fifteen minutes in a taxi.

Five or so more since Sherlock went to the tiny cottage’s kitchen to make tea – not exactly rapturous to see John but that’s to be expected – taking his time, fussing unnecessarily over biscuits and china cups.

So yes. For John, time passes.

Yet now here he and Sherlock are, right back where they started almost a decade ago: both of them alone, both of them bloodied and bruised from battle. Much scarred. Strangers to each other once again.

Sherlock lives the life of a recluse now, on an isolated farm in the South Downs. No visitors, or so John is told – he has no first-hand knowledge of these things – and for all he knows, he, John, is the first person Sherlock has seen in months. The nearest village is outside of walking distance, but there’s a large farm house that’s the length of a foot-worn country lane from here, Sherlock’s landlord, John presumes. A little of the old ways have stuck, and so John has made enquiries: the locals like them, the farmer and his wife. They’re middle aged, quiet, keep themselves to themselves, they’ve a young family. In John’s more generous moments he has hopes they are at least some company for his old friend.

As John waits he looks around the sitting room of the gate house that’s nothing like the old rooms at Baker Street. Where the London flat was alive, almost breathing with Sherlock’s personality, this new place is entirely devoid of it. Gone are the stacks of journals, the in progress experiments. The odds and ends that he’d been so fond of collecting: books, pictures, specimens, case files, the music stand, his violin… all absent. Instead Sherlock seems to inhabit a very un-Sherlock like space. It’s cold, almost clinical, something that the flat never was. Something that Sherlock never really was either. The furniture is brand new – clean lines and fashionable fabrics, straight from a high-end showroom, completely bereft of character– the walls are painted a shade of grey that’s considered very on trend. There’s not a patch of wallpaper in sight let alone a spray painted smiley face. John has the distinct feeling that Sherlock isn’t really here at all. 

Closure, Ella calls this. A way to put a pin in the past. Forgive each and move on: John for Sherlock’s part in Mary’s death, Sherlock—

Sherlock for John failing him, leaving him in the hands of a serial killer even though by then John knew about Mary’s – _frankly_ – astonishingly stupid plan.

The lie had begun with a truth: Sherlock was an addict. What better way to put himself in danger than to get off his head on coke and throw himself in the path of a very bad man? So that’s what he’d done. Simple. In a weird Sherlock version of logic it made perfect sense. But he’d made a mistake: he’d put his trust in people who couldn’t be trusted 

_Jesus_. John reflexively scrubs a hand over his mouth. _Culverton Smith_.

In the months since, John has lain awake in bed at night wondering how, _how_ , he could have gotten it all so wrong? How they all had gotten it so wrong.

 _That’s a simple one_ , the voice of Mary that’s still making cameo appearances after more than a year tells him. ( ** _Tonight’s special guest, Mary Watson,_** the continuity announcer in his head says too brightly, **_starring_** **_as the conscience of John H. Watson.)_** _You wanted to believe he was a monster because that was easier than dealing with the fact that he was a broken, fragile man who was a better friend to you than you ever were to him._

Well, _yes_ , there is that, John allows.

 _And Molly knew,_ Mary corrects him, _not everyone had it wrong._

Again Mary is right. Molly had believed Sherlock. Molly had faith in him. But then that was Molly, wasn’t it? Always on Sherlock’s side no matter what fuck-up he’d gotten himself in to. And it was she who’d saved his life. Along with Greg she’d smashed her way into Sherlock’s hospital room to find him barely breathing, Smith’s hands over his unconscious victim’s mouth and nose. He’d been seconds from death, and though John knows that’s on Sherlock and Mary, deep down there’s the ghost of another truth: he’s questioned it over and over and still can’t decide if he ignored Sherlock because he didn’t believe him, or whether it was out of spite because he was still so fucking angry.

 _You know which one_ , his wife’s voice is gentle, accusing, _you just don’t want to acknowledge it_.

In the empty silence of the country cottage, he admits to himself for the first time that Mary’s right, that through negligence and rage he’d almost killed his friend.

For a moment, John comes back to the present and listens for Sherlock who seems to have disappeared. _No, nothing_. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, wishing that they could just get this over with, drink their tea and pretend to be okay so that John can take the train back to Victoria and forget that he’s the monster, not Sherlock. Because if that’s the truth, if he did it because he blamed his friend for Mary’s death, well, they’re most definitely even now. A wife and child for— Well, he’s not sure what Molly was to Sherlock, but something in John’s gut tells him that the child she’d been carrying was his.

What happened after he’d kicked the shit out of Sherlock very nearly killing him, John doesn’t know. Because John had gone to Baker Street, he’d watched that damned DVD with Mary and her daft fucking plan and her beautiful eyes glittering, and still, with hate in his heart and revenge consuming his soul, he hadn’t gone to stop Smith. John Motherfucking Watson, filled with bright-eyed hatred, had wanted his friend to die.

Had Molly been Sherlock’s backup plan all along? Or had she simply known, the way she always somehow did? Because where John had failed, Molly had not.

And then?

Who knows.

Sherlock survived and Molly disappeared. Finally, it seemed, she’d had enough and was gone, taking their unborn kid with her. The last fight Sherlock had picked with a bad guy had been one too many and Molly’s survival instincts must have kicked in. They’d been together, John learned from Mrs Hudson, before Magnusson. But Sherlock had fucked Molly over, carrying on with Janine behind her back. At some point he must have wormed his way back into her good graces, because she’d managed to get herself knocked up, but the Smith case was one step too far, especially when she had the child to think of.

Where she was now was anyone’s guess. Molly wasn’t one for cruelty. She would never have hurt Sherlock carelessly, but she did what she had to do. She put the child first and probably broke her own heart in the process, poor girl.

What he _didn’t_ have to speculate about was the effect her disappearance had on Sherlock. As soon as he was well enough to leave London, he’d gone missing too, searching for her, John presumes. Sweden, first. Then God only knew where. In truth, he’d never come back. Not really.

That, at least, John can feel something about. Losing someone you love, having your child taken away from you. (Well, he reasons it was love, or Sherlock’s version of it, because why else would he have eaten himself alive only to reconstitute as a shadow of who he once was?)

But these are things that John and he have in common now. He understands. Only, this isn’t the time to unpack them. Too much. Too soon. He takes a deep breath and pushes it all away, because he will resolutely not cry while having afternoon tea in Sussex with someone who might cry too.

So yeah, closure. But if he’s honest with himself (and on some days he does manage it) his hand has been forced by the publisher. John needs to have the legal papers signed that will allow him to use Sherlock’s name and their cases in his books. The money will set him up for life, and a vicious part of him, one that he’s tried so hard to overcome, feels like he deserves that. That Sherlock owes him.

_In his head Mary calls him an arsehole. John finds that he can’t disagree._

She’s silenced by the sound of Sherlock’s long strides on the tasteful walnut floor that leads to the small living room where John waits.

In the doorway he stops, studies John for a moment, and oh, how John has not missed being seen by eyes that see everything. Like Mystic fucking Meg, he’ll already have figured out everything John’s been thinking.

The tea tray slips a little, the china clinking softly, and Sherlock remembers then to set it down on the table by the side of John’s chair: this he does with a flourish, camp as Christmas, the only sign John’s had today that bits of Sherlock might have survived intact.

“My apologies for the wait,” he gives a half smile, “I went to get honey. My own. Well, not mine exactly. Rather my bees.”

 _Jesus Fucking Christ._ It’s so absurd that it’s almost hilarious. Sherlock’s not only living in page one hundred and fifty fucking two of the latest Ikea catalogue but also keeping bees to distract himself from real life instead of shooting up and chasing villains halfway across London? _Is he really so bloody broken?_ But then John knows exactly what losing your missus and your kid can do. Maybe he should give Sherlock some credit for being as solid as he is. So John veers back, away from that and the insomnia and loneliness that’s so fucking obvious in Sherlock’s eyes (yes, John can make deductions too) toward safer, kinder, territory.

“I’d have worked that out, thanks.”

Sherlock squares himself. A tight smile on his lips. “One can never assume.”

_Pompous prick._

The staring contest resumes. But for a split second there was the old banter, a connection, fleeting, but real. Something uncomfortable swells in John’s gut. Guilt? No, fucking worse than that. _Pity._

A clock that John can’t see ticks softly in the otherwise quiet house. There’s heft in that silence, it has both mass and volume. They sit by the fireside, opposite each other in a parody of long gone days. Each pretending that they’re the men they used to be. It’s all so terribly polite that John thinks he might put his fist through the wall. Instead he acts – like a good Englishman should – as though he doesn’t want to run for the hills, screaming as he goes, and reminds himself to give conversation another go. He clears his throat.

“Never would have had you pegged as the type to keep bees.”

“You’ve always been too sure of what I am and what I am not.”

“And whose fault is that?” A pistol cocked, armed and ready, John snaps and instantly regrets it. He looks away, then back again, pinching the bridge of his nose. This was never going to be easy, but somehow he thought— Well. It turns out he’s wrong.

Instead of exchanging words they look at each other, Sherlock’s expression blank, John’s probably less so.

“Jesus, Sherlock, I’m trying here,” John huffs in honest exasperation, because this really isn’t how he wants things to be.

Sherlock bows his head, concedes the point. He says, “Perhaps this calls for something stronger than tea?”

John doesn’t voice an objection so a hip flask manifests from Sherlock’s inside jacket pocket and the china cups are each one quarter filled with whiskey. Then Sherlock speaks to John with sincere concern.

“Are you all right?”

“I,” he says, not really sure of what will come next. He sips at his liquor: it burns when he swallows, but it’s something to do while he tries to will away the ache in his throat, the one that makes his voice creaky. “I really don’t know.”

Sherlock looks from beneath a frown. “You’ve brought a contract for me to sign.”

“From the publisher, yeah.”

“You intend to write the book alone.”

“Didn’t know there was any other option.”

Sherlock empties his cup; refills both his and John’s with whiskey. “I have notes. Text me a list of the cases you’re writing up and I’ll pull them out for you,” he says, unsure eyes glancing up at John while he tops up their cups with honey sweetened tea.

Sherlock’s own honey. _How’s that for surreal?_

“If you come back a week next Sunday I’ll have them ready. We can go through them together. Detail will make for a more interesting casebook.”

“And you— you’d _want_ that? To work together again?”

“Observation, John, was never your strongest skill.” Sherlock smiles with eyes that crinkle at the corner in a way that reminds John that neither of them are young men anymore. “You’re going to need help.”

And there it is, shocking but weirdly unsurprising. Absolution from all his sins. Their friendship not so irretrievably lost after all.

_Or perhaps it never was._

There’s an unexpected burn in John’s chest, one that doesn’t come from spiked tea. It’s odd, he thinks, that forgiveness hurts so much more than condemnation. Still. It’s good. It’s _them_ , in a way they’ve always been. Ella’s right, he supposes. Nursing his raw anger won’t do him any good. Not anymore.

Suddenly, strangely, he doesn’t feel quite as lonely as he’s been this last year. _It’s a ridiculously good feeling._

There are things he wants to say to Sherlock. Things like, _I know you’re not to blame for Mary, not really._ Or, _I wish things had worked out differently for all of us._ He might even say, _I forgive you_. Ask, _can you forgive me?_ Even, if he were brave, _do you know your kid’s name? Do you know if it was a boy or a girl?_ None of which he’ll speak out loud, not yet, because John Watson’s had about all the emotional insights he can handle for one day, and if he doesn’t say the words then he doesn’t have to know what they mean.

Mixed in with the relief from the terror he’s been trying to deny, that Sherlock wouldn’t be part of his life ever again, there’s sorrow, impotent, sharp, for all the things they _don’t_ have. But there’s a chance then, just a chance, that despite all the things they’ve lost they might still have each other. They might not be alone after all.

Somewhere outside, John hears the sounds of the sea and birds fluttering in the trees. Amber sunshine slanting through the sash windows is speckled with dust motes that drift lazily in the stilted air. It’s different here. It’s not the city. But perhaps that’s the point. Things can never be what they once were, but that doesn’t mean they can never be anything at all. They can’t look back over their shoulders for the rest of their lives, wishing. Maybe it’s okay not to.

It’s possible that Sherlock understands this already: he’s chosen to live, though it’s a different life, it’s still life. Maybe it’s time for John to do the same.

And for whatever his prayers may be worth, John hopes that Molly – _wherever she is now_ – has chosen life too.

*

*

As it turns out, three days into Moira’s fourth month is when she finally starts to sleep through the night. A small gift to her mother, one Molly couldn’t be more grateful for. The sleepless nights have been traded off for constant chatter: Moira looks at Molly sometimes – when she’s gurgling and blabbering nonsense – as though she’s telling her something of great importance and not only expects her mother to understand but to respond appropriately to the instruction she’s giving. Sometimes she guesses right, much to Moira’s pleasure, sometimes she doesn’t; and it’s then, in those moments, that she looks so much like her father that Molly finds it hard to believe that her child is half Hooper at all and not a clone made entirely of Sherlock’s genetic material. It could terrify her, raising a child that’s half his, but instead she sees it in the same light as the solid seven she got last night – one of life’s little gifts.

Moira has his hands, her nose. She has his eyes, his soft brown curls. Velvet skin. Rosy cheeks. Sherlock’s lips but Molly’s smile. Lean despite her ravenous appetite. Long limbs. Long toes. And it’s those she’s watching now as she leaves her kitchen through the French doors at the back of the farm house to take up her seat on the patio where Sherlock too is sitting, the baby in his lap, one of her little feet in his huge hand as he plays with it, counting piggies who’ve gone to market.

Moira blinks away sleep. Yawns.

Molly glances in the direction of Sherlock’s gate house office. “How did it go?”

“He thinks that—” He kisses the baby’s downy head, softly, speaking with his lips against it. “That you left.”

“He told you that?”

Her husband raises one eyebrow and looks at her through his long lashes.

“Well.” She says. “He’s right. I did leave.”

“At my instruction.” Sherlock corrects. “And I followed as soon as I could. That’s not the same as you just disappearing without a trace.”

“Yes. Okay. Point taken.”

His eyes flick to her then back to the baby. “I didn’t lie.”

“But you didn’t set him straight?”

In response there’s a tightening in his jaw, a barely perceptible nod of his head. _No_.

Molly reaches out, covering his free hand with one of hers. “He’d be happy for you, you know?”

“He blames me.”

“He’s trying not to. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come today.”

Sherlock takes a deep breath, and brings Molly’s hand to his lips, kissing the back of it firmly. Always, there’s subtext to his actions: _I have so much,_ Sherlock says without voice, _John has so little._

It hurts Molly’s heart that he’s lonely without Mycroft, estranged from John, that he still grieves for Mary. Though he is responsible for only one of those things, he’s carrying the burden of all. Life for Sherlock is always about a redistribution of blame it seems: too heavily he weights the game against himself, too often he finds himself at fault.

Molly chooses her next words carefully.

“John has a skill, a job that he loves. A home. Friends. He’ll have us, if he wants. And I’ve no doubt he’ll one day abandon us all for a wife who’ll never be Mary. But, you know, he got it right once before, so maybe he will again.” Molly exhales. “I think he’ll be okay.”

“That’s not—” Frustrated, his eyes are low, intent, but without focus. Moira’s toes are played with again. Sherlock is restless. Disquiet in a way that he hardly ever is these days.

“Except it is,” she persists. “You see loss as loss.”

“Because that’s what it is.”

“No, my darling. Haven’t you worked it out? Loss is just another word for change. Sometimes it’s unwanted, but sometimes not. Think of all you’ve lost: London, cases with the Met... But would you trade any of that for the things you’ve gained?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.

“None of us are who we once were, but would we really ever want to be those people again? Losses happen. Changes happen. And we can’t stop them. So we move on. We take what we have _now_ and try to be grateful for it. The past, the future… we just can’t know. There’s only today.”

“Impermanence.” Sherlock says after thoughtful consideration.

“Impermanence.” Molly confirms.

Toes are once again twiddled. The baby shifts in his arms and sighs – shuddering, soft – she gives in to sleep, drifting off now, deeper, deeper.

“He’s coming back next Sunday.”

“Then you bring him here, not the gate house.” Molly’s voice is excessively gentle.

Sherlock swallows loudly. There’s silence for the duration of three heartbeats. “Okay. Yes.”

Molly rubs her thumb over the back of his hand, looking at the white blossom petals caught on the breeze: for a moment they stand still in mid-air, eventually falling softly to the ground like snow. The end of spring, overnight it’s become summer.

_Loss. Change._

Sherlock is quiet. Processing. He holds Molly’s hand. Tight. Tighter. Tighter still. More unspoken words translated into touch. It’s their language. She understands. She hears every syllable he doesn’t say, clear and bright like sunshine.

_For this is love and nothing else is._

Moira fusses a little in Sherlock’s arms but settles again. Asleep too early. There won’t be a chance of her getting the whole way through tonight without waking: if Molly’s lucky she’ll get five hours, maybe five and a half. But then, she thinks, luck seems to be something that she has in spades these days.

Evening bird song; The wind in the orchard; At the end of their garden the low buzzing of bees; The sea, tide coming in; Moira’s whispered angel’s breath as she sleeps; For the longest time there are only these sounds.

They’re beautiful. Joyous. Impermanent. Just as all things are.

Out on the road a car approaches then passes by.

In Molly’s last memory of John he’s standing in a hospital corridor, Sherlock’s blood on his shoes and fists. In her last one of Mary her friend smiles and kisses her cheek, promising to call her later. They never speak again.

She lets herself feel her losses, then lets them go on wings that rise higher and higher, drifting away until they are out of sight.

Sherlock pulls her closer so she leans into him, the baby between them. And Molly wraps her arms around her little family, holding on to them as tightly as she can.


End file.
